


A Story of Mine Own

by MagicandMess (magicandmess)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandmess/pseuds/MagicandMess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry wishes that he could tell his son stories of his childhood but finds he'll have to leave that task to Arya...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Story of Mine Own

Arya rambles on as she bounces the growing babe on her knee, soft grunts filling the air as Rickon and little Mance spar with their wooden swords before her. He knows the story she’s telling – an epic tale of the first time she rode a horse with Jon and Robb – but, then, he knows all her childhood stories; even better than he knows his own. He knows that Sansa only ever broke rules if it meant getting an extra lemon cake from the kitchens, knew that on stormy nights when Arya was very little the legitimate children would pile into their parents’ bed (though the youngest Stark girl had always made sure to give Jon a cuddle on her way there) and he knew that the first time she had seen the direwolf pups had been in the kitchen, where Robb had shown them how to feed them using cloths.

He could remember so many little, insignificant details about a time when they had not even known each other yet, as the years went on, he found he remembered little and less of his own childhood. When Arya described her parents it was with such detail that Gendry could picture them perfectly, knew what ways they differed from Jon and Sansa who, the Northerners claimed, where almost replicas of the last Lord and Lady of Winterfell. When Gendry tries to think of his own mother it takes much concentration and even then some of the memories were hazy. He can remember her long, straw coloured hair and a smattering of freckles over a slightly turned up nose yet her eyes always change; sometimes they are the startling blue of his own, other times Arya’s grey but most of the time they were nondescript. As a young boy he had thought her the most beautiful woman in the world - “even lovelier than the queen!” he had argued with one of the boys he lived with, though he had never actually seen the queen – but now, when he reminded himself of her face now, she was plain at best.

She was younger than most of the women they lived with – or at least, she had less lines around her eyes and mouth – and Lyselle had always said she was popular, though it took Gendry many years to realise in which ways she was popular.

When she and the other women went to work in the adjoining building, he and the other would play in the ‘family’ room and an old woman with no teeth would pretend to watch over them while sleeping in a chair. He didn’t remember the children’s names or most the games they played and the only story which seemed anyway memorable was not appropriate for the babe. He had been three moons short of his tenth name day when it happened and it had all began with a game of knights. One skinny, dark skinned boy had claimed the role of Jaime Lannister; Gendry’s favourite member of the Kingsgaurd and, as a result, young Gendry had named himself ‘King Robert Baratheon’ only to be informed by the boy that he was a bastard and that bastards couldn’t be king. He didn’t know what a bastard was – not truly – and didn’t know that, really, they were all bastards but he knew it was an insult and had grabbed the boy’s arm and twisted, hard enough to break it. Lyselle had beat him with a leather strap for that.

One of the few strong memories Gendry held of his mother was her cough. In almost all of his vague memories she was coughing, a dirty cloth held up to her face to hide what he now assumed to be blood. When Arya had been heavy with the babe, she had developed a cough and Gendry had been beside himself, fretting day and night that she would leave him the way his mother had but Sansa had assured him that Maester Samwell knew what he was doing, that Arya would be safe. His mother had not been lucky enough to have a Maester like Samwell; had not been lucky enough to have a Maester at all. He could remember holding her hand, cold as it was, and Lyselle telling him to say his goodbyes. He had cried then, when his mother had smiled up at him with such sad eyes. “You look just like your father,” she had said, though Gendry couldn’t imagine his father would ever cry. He was a great man, his mother said, fearsome and strong and she hoped he would grow up to be just like him. Gendry knew he would – he was going to be a knight; regardless of his last name being Waters. It was strange, he thought, how he had become so much more than a knight.

When Arya told stories of her childhood, she spoke of old Winterfell, of Syrio her dance teacher and, on more than one occasion, had told the story she and Gendry both shared – the journey from King’s Landing. Gendry’s childhood had ended long before then, hours after his mother had died, when he had been told there was no longer a place for him in the house. When Arya told the stories, she told of her brave Bull who had protected her on the way to the Wall to see Jon. She never told of Ned’s beheading or that she was going to the wall for other reasons, never mentioned the scared blacksmith’s apprentice who would hold her a little too tight when they shared furs just so that she wouldn’t leave him…

Gendry felt a smile creep to his lips as the babe gurgled happily in his mother’s arms, his dark grey eyes shining. He may not have exciting childhood stories to tell but he would make sure little Brandon had many and more; tales of happy times with his family, something Gendry couldn’t start telling until he was reunited with his Arya.


End file.
